84 LEADING EULES. 



169. — Meet him on the other hand with mechanical appliances, 

 about which nature has given him not the slightest idea, and he 

 no longer thinks of resistance. He has nothing to oppose to you ; 

 he is a piece of clay in your hands ; and you stand before him no 

 longer on equal terms, but as a superior being ; an omnipotent 

 master, whose will he will obey directly you can make him under- 

 stand what that will is. 



170. — This is the great central truth that you must never 

 forget in your dealings with the horse. Never meet him on his 

 own ground ; never enter into a physical contest with him ; never 

 run after him ; never exhibit any brutal temper ; never give him 

 blow for blow, nor push for push, nor pull for pull. Avoid every 

 contest in which you must, or even may be beaten, and the horse 

 will soon learn to look upon you as omnipotent, and will never 

 think of measuring any of his powers against yours. 



171. — If our readers will only keep this great principle 

 constantly in mind, in everything they do with a young horse, 

 they will certainly succeed. The details we may give may be 

 varied in a hundred diflFerent ways, but this essential principle 

 must never be departed from, 



172.— The modest opinion that the horse can so readily be got 

 to entertain of his own power is a most convenient feature in his 

 character until we come to Avant to give him confidence at pulling 

 in the collar, and then it becomes our great difficulty. But this 

 is a subject of such great practical importance that it must be 

 fully treated of in a separate chapter, before we can understand the 

 subject of breaking to harness. 



173. —The man who undertakes to educate a horse labours 

 under some disadvantages that do not arise in the education of a 

 child. A tutor is commonly supposed to be the superior of his 

 pupil physically, mentally, and morally, and generally has the 

 immense advantage of using a language common to both. The 

 teacher of the horse knows nothing of his language, if he has one, 

 whilst he has to deal with an animal far surpassing him in physical 

 power, and whose special senses are all more efficient than his own. 

 The ear of the horse catches sounds too faint or too distant to be 

 heard by man ; his eyes enable him to gallop on a track that his 



